Please Need Help/Info
 

Hello everyone. I am new to orchids and have no idea what is going on with mine. I have discovered it was a oncidium but past that I can't seem to figure out exactly what it is in order to find information about it. I think I may have over watered it and now the flowers are all falling off. Is this a plant where when the blooms are gone I trim it back? Since I fixed the water problem they have seemed to stop wilting and falling off so that is good, but I am lost. Please help. below is a picture of one of the flowers on the orchid

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It's a beautiful flower bur I have no idea of its name. You could trim it back when the blooms are gone. I actually wait until the spike is very dry to trim but that's just my :twocents:

trimming?
 

How far back do you trim the flowers? Just take the flower itself off, or do you take some of the stem/branch with it like you do with roses? I'm just not sure how to go about it.

When the flower is "done" it will fall off by itself. When the flower stalk (spike) is done (all the blossoms have fallen) cut it off down next to the sheath leaf. I doubt you over watered. Oncidiums don't like to stay wet, but still will take a lot of water especially when the new growths start.

I was given 3 yellow Oncidium plants about 6 years ago and came home and diligently planted them in separate pots using coals and bricks as I usually do. I wash the pieces of clay bricks which I have chipped fine and the coals pieces as well with water and make sure they are clean and then plant all my orchids. Sometimes I add small pebbles to the two , same washing procedure for the pebbles as well. Anyway one grew so big that it filled the pot and the other two about 1/4 the size of the first. But they have never bloomed and I water regularly and fertilize as I do all my orchids once per week , sometimes when the Rheumatoid Arthritis is acting up I might go to two weeks apart. Still no bloom, this August would make 6 years .
However I was a given a brown and white Oncidium which came flowering two years ago and this has never stopped flowering and I separted the plant in to two when the pot was filled to capacity with plants and roots and the two separated ones are still flowering like the original.
So how can I help the yellow to bloom... I talk regularly to the three of them ..... smile

im not an oncid expert but i would say its in your lighting cycle most likley, maybe the temperature range included, some like cooler temps and more darkness to bloom, someone else here might be able to give you exact numbers, or better reasons, just and idea, your planting medium is interesting kind of hydroponic really, you might have a bunch of salts retained in those pores in the brick do you run a bunch of rainwater thru it to cleanse the substrate of salts,i guess the charcole will cleanse the water right?? i use 3 waterings with rainwater and then one watering with fertalizer, to make sure i wash my substrate clean, i use a bloom formula when my orchids are in bloomBetter -Gro makes good products they are also Urea Free u know!! i used to use to much fertalizer myself but if you get the palnt all blocked up with salts and keep it in a hard greengrowth cycle, you would be in the direction you are heading, i used to grow all hydroponic,, i used rockwool,for a growing medium , its like cotton candy blown super heated rock threads,, the plants love it,i grew monsters plain monsters!! scary,,i havent recoverd yet,, i havent tried it with orchids, but anyways back to orchids, i would say your bloom deal is a lighting, temp thing and maybe maybe the fertalizer needs more of the k in N-P-K the last number in the fertalizer chain numbers on the fertalizer pkg,, i was always used to the schooling that N nitrogen was good for green growth cycle the last number K is what the plant uses in the bloom cycle. just an idea though consult your fertalizer package is the last number real low?? im sure someone here will have better advice for you on this.

Many thanks for all your advice and suggestions. Yes I do run water regularly through my orchids to wash the bricks. But you know I was never aware that I was using a type of hydroponic medium until I joined the Orchid Board... thanks so much people....well many things I did not know about orchids and names of them etc ...... until I joined the OB.
My daughter has tried tagging and naming and numbering so she says there are at leat 80 plants . I live in Trinidad in the Caribbean so plenty light .... perhaps I may need some dark for the yellow oncidium to bloom. My neighbour's yellow oncidium is not blooming either and she bought her plant from the plant shop as I did not share this plant with her.
I would check the Potassium in my fertiliser , that is the K factor. Once more thanks....

i got my yellow oncidium since june this year, never bloom till now.